Or is this instead where I snark that those who can't write, critique? ...except that would be tarring myself with my own damn brush, I suppose.
Oh, I don't know about that. I've read both your critiques and your fiction, and they're both very good.
I think people expect to see the stuff that they're culturally conditioned to see. An American sees a reference to the Civil War, and of course it's the American Civil War that springs to mind, and rightfully so. The English Civil War is only peripherally part of American history, and only because it was one of the events leading up to the Puritan exodus from England and the establishment of their colonies in the New World.
The World Wars are a bit trickier. The US fought in the First World War, though only in the last stages, but it somehow doesn't register on the public consciousness the same way that the Second World War does.
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Date: 18 Nov 2009 06:50 pm (UTC)Oh, I don't know about that. I've read both your critiques and your fiction, and they're both very good.
I think people expect to see the stuff that they're culturally conditioned to see. An American sees a reference to the Civil War, and of course it's the American Civil War that springs to mind, and rightfully so. The English Civil War is only peripherally part of American history, and only because it was one of the events leading up to the Puritan exodus from England and the establishment of their colonies in the New World.
The World Wars are a bit trickier. The US fought in the First World War, though only in the last stages, but it somehow doesn't register on the public consciousness the same way that the Second World War does.